trendy trend forecasting

Working with future research is becoming a huge trend in itself. Future researcher, trend forecaster, trend spotter, trend guru, cool hunter - the neighbour’s cat goes by many names. People adopt one of these titles without undertaking any kind of formal apprenticeship or training, but what does trend forecasting really involve? Too much hot air or the world championship in not getting to the point?

I’ve come across a number of interesting definitions of the job title ‘trend forecaster’. We all know that you don’t become a fully fledged trend researcher just by reading a few trend books, buying a few statistics, doing some market research, combing Vogue and National Geographic and channel surfing. You simple won’t be able to produce a coherent, insightful trend forecast by lifting other people’s knowledge and opinions.

Statistics are only projections and don’t furnish us with concrete information about the future. The factual and the linear do not represent true future research but rather, a future projection. Basically the trend market is really hard to define. I have always believed that the true art comes with forming your own opinion rather than simply adopting the consensus view. But one thing is sure: you need to be creative, concrete and inventive to get anywhere in ‘the jungle of the trend world’.

Get the tools out
Sometimes I don’t know whether I’m working on a building site or in a trend bureau. We talk about platforms or tools that can simplify new product development and the design process, making them more transparent. Today intuition is an accepted ingredient in any forecast process, but on the other hand, it has to be clearly defined.

We are continually developing new tools for our customers that help us visualize the creative process and render it tangible. Yet in the research sector, it is not enough to tentatively say: “I sense that there is a tendency towards…. “ and so on drawing merely on the soft values. Although we all talk about soft values being something of major importance, everything needs to be explained right down to the last detail. The creative process has become scientific – design brief, concept, research, development, finished product, and so on. Everything is conceptualized, visualized and presented in depth. The key word is visibility and the platform is holistic.

To put together the whole picture in this way, the soft values need to embrace the intuitive and the spiritual. These are then underpinned by the factual – the so-called hard values of the scientific and the social. Credible companies simply do not buy into this ‘trend bubble’ unless they are given credible supporting research. Neither do they want something that is too obvious. Therefore the new hard currency is ‘intelligent trend forecasting’. This is where you travel through your emotional landscape; you feel your way forward, trust the process and work with it rather than against it. And in retrospect, you will be able to chart a detailed map of your journey.

Soft versus hard
To forecast the future, emotional intelligence needs to be married with intellect. Personally, I am convinced that people will become more and more attuned to the spiritual level, above and beyond the emotional and the intellectual. Recently, BBC 2 showed a series called “Testing God”. In this programme, one of the scientists interviewed stated that “questioning is the absolute duty of the soul”. The participants all agreed that it didn’t matter whether or not you could provide proof of the spiritual. The essential was simply to be in touch with the divine and with your inner self.

When a climate of global unrest flourishes it becomes blatantly obvious that believing in yourself and the divine takes on a much greater significance. Personal development is currently a major trend: this encompasses meditation, yoga, chi gong, tai chi and so on – all activities that take us away from the material and brings us into closer contact with the spiritual.

When need becomes greed
Today it has become a rather complex task for companies to communicate their brand and service profile. Consequently it is crucial that trend reports and forecasts are intelligently conceived, inspiring and enlightening. It’s no longer enough to identify variation and lifestyle factors influencing the ‘new consumer’.

The marketing industry of today talks about ‘one stop solutions’ where macro trends and statistics are combined with the conceptual and then given form. Factual information is fused with the intuitive and synthesized into a handy little trend overview that doesn’t take too long to read and analyse. Constantly stressed, forever trying to catch up with things, statistics show that we live in a time-starved society. The result is that many companies never really have time to develop anything new and tend to merely upgrade to the next version of the same.

We no longer develop and produce to simply meet people’s needs. But instead, we’re driven by greed manifested as growth and profit. This co-exists and is contrasted with a deep inner longing for individuality. This is a trend that has been talked about for many years but has never really been practiced. In today’s world we live, eat, think and dress global – the trend is anti-globalization.

Whatever you believe in follow your intuition. As Goethe once wrote “One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.” So trust the process and for sure you will get there.

Anne Lise Kjaer
December 9, 2001